This article is the first of two articles on
Americans' worship frequency.
How many Americans routinely worship at churches or synagogues?
The attempt to answer that question is both fascinating and
complex. Because the U.S. Census does not collect data about
religion, there are no official data to help answer that question.
Various church bodies and denominations may attempt to tote up
attendance at their formal worship services, but there are so many
church bodies and such varying standards of reporting that these
efforts generally cannot be used to produce reliable attendance
estimates.
Thus, it is not surprising that survey researchers' estimates
have, over the years, been used to gauge Americans' worship habits.
Gallup, for one, has been asking Americans about their church
attendance for nearly 70 years, which provides a rich and extensive
historical record.
Gallup's Measures
Gallup asks about worship frequency in several different ways.
One Gallup question asks individuals to estimate their usual (or
average) frequency of church attendance. Another Gallup question
simply asks individuals to look back no further than the last seven
days and to indicate whether they have attended worship services
during that period.
This last procedure, used by Gallup since 1939, was designed to
be a more precise measure, although it has turned out to be the
most controversial. Gallup has asked this question of a general
population sample of U.S. adults hundreds of times over the years.
On a regular and routine basis in recent years, roughly 4 in 10
Americans have told Gallup interviewers that they attended "church
or synagogue" in the last seven days.
For example, in the six times that Gallup has asked this
question since 2003, the percentage of Americans who said they had
attended church or synagogue within the last seven days was 38%,
43%, 43%, 45%, 44%, and 42%. Although recorded values on this
measure were consistently higher in the 1950s, they have generally
been in the 40% to 45% range for most other points in time over the
last six to seven decades. (Interestingly, the average percentage
who said "yes" in 1939 was 41%, virtually the same as recorded most
recently in 2005.)
The second regular way in which Gallup measures church
attendance is to ask this question: "How often do you attend church
or synagogue -- at least once a week, almost every week, about once
a month, seldom, or never?" In November 2005, 33% said they attend
at least once a week, 12% said almost every week, 15% said about
once a month, 26% said seldom, and 14% said never.
There is little question that these survey-based measures are
just estimates, even the seemingly more precise question about
worship "in the last seven days." People are not perfect when it
comes to remembering or being able to recount the specifics of
their past behavior. While most of us can remember if we have been
attacked by a bear, it is more difficult to be precise in recalling
how many times we engage in routine behaviors such as church
attendance, grocery shopping, or getting a haircut. Self-reported
attendance "in the last seven days" may in fact reflect
usual church attendance. And those who estimate that they
attend church at least once a week presumably are not in church
each and every week out of the year. Illnesses, vacations, and the
like may keep even the most reliable churchgoer away some weeks
during the year.
Next week, Dr. Newport discusses the value -- and
the potential pitfalls -- of using
non-survey-based methods to estimate worship
attendance.
